July 1969, before the Global Telecoms Business Forty under Forty

were born, and Buzz Aldrin climbs down to join Neil Armstrong

on the moon. Picture: Nasa

Introduction 

by Bhaskar Gorti 

In June 1969, our world was a very different place. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had not yet stepped on to the moon, Concorde had taken to the skies for the first time, and it would be another five years until the IEEE published a paper outlining a radical new idea for "Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection," also know as IP.
June 1969 is also the marker from which Global Telecoms Business is recognising 40 executives who have in this relatively short, yet incredibly dynamic period, taken their positions as leaders within the global telecommunications industry.
Oracle was born from the realisation of the tremendous potential in the relational database model and its ability to change the face of business computing. Today, Oracle is the number one business software company in the world.
We have grown from our technical roots, through enterprise business applications, into industry-specific applications, relied upon by 20 of the top 20 service providers around the world.
Commitment to innovation and results has defined Oracle for more than 30 years and it's these same leadership traits that mark out the careers of the executives honoured here.
These individuals have delivered in markets across the world, be they mature or emerging. They have shaped the way communications services are delivered and offered to their customers, while simultaneously delivering the superb business results — when times have been good, but also when different economic realities arise.
The communications industry is undergoing an exciting evolution, whereby service providers are reaching beyond traditional voice services to deliver radical new value to our customers in ways that can impact global health, wealth, and community.
We face new competitive, technological and regulatory challenges and are regularly tasked with the seemingly unachievable, or certainly the not done before.
Leadership and innovation has defined our industry for the past forty years. I'm confident that with executives such as those recognised here, that the industry's best days are ahead of it.
I'm proud to associate Oracle with the recognition of these individuals together with the teams they lead. Congratulations all.

Bhaskar Gorti is senior vice president and general manager at Oracle Communications

Editor's comment

It was great fun finding and writing about the most promising executives in this industry under 40.
We asked everyone we could think of this simple question: "Off the top of your head, who are the two or three leading young executives in the telecoms industry?"
We wanted to know the people who are most likely to lead the industry over the next decade or two. Some are already in senior positions; others are starting to show their potential. And we wanted people from operators, vendors or other companies.
Thanks to everyone around the world for proposing so many interesting names. If your nomination is not included, don't be offended: the list of nominees was long.
We hope that everyone is actually under 40. One or two nominated people whom they admitted had passed their 40th birthday, and we excluded them — but a couple of over just-40s may have crept through.
Some, though, could not think of anyone under 40. An executive of one prominent operator said: "I wish I could help but I'm at a loss to pick anyone under 40 that is in a leadership role."
A second contributor said: "Everyone I know of is at least 40." Another emailed: "We are sorry to say that we are unable to participate as currently our good ideas and innovations are coming from colleagues more than 40 years of age." So that, partly, explains any gaps in our coverage.
As an editor well over the cut-off age for 40 under 40, I'd have to agree. But we wanted to look to the future — ten or 20 years into the future, when many of the people in the these pages will be at the very top of the industry. Read about them now, and remember that you read about them in Global Telecoms Business first.
Alan Burkitt-Gray
Editor

Sara Baack
Level 3
As senior VP of voice services, Sara Baack "is an exceptional leader with enormous growth potential", said one colleague. "She excels at tackling difficult business problems through a highly strategic and analytic approach."
Another said: "Sara's dedication to excellence is a way of life for her, which is extremely motivating for those around her. She is an inspirational leader who asks as much of herself as she does of those with whom she works, and she is a role model for the women at Level 3."
A third colleague added: "Sara is the leader that inspires everyone around her with the curiosity and analytical thinking skills she brings to problems and the determination and creativity with which she solves them. She is sure to continue reaching great heights."

Sian Baldwin
BT
As director of broadband and content at BT, Sian Baldwin's current focus is to shape and lead BT Wholesale on broadband, delivered to more than eight million UK homes and businesses, including software services, open platforms and new models for digital content for fixed, mobile and CPs.
As programme director for billing and payments Baldwin cut costs by 25% in the first three months in post. She also led the Openreach programme to provide a unified industry approach to migration of end users between service providers — reducing the rate of migration failure 300% in a six month period.
Baldwin joined BT from Accenture and has attended both the Harvard Business School and the London Business School.

Peter Briscoe
Telcordia
As director of innovation within Telcordia's chief strategy office, Peter Briscoe directs new programmes aimed at addressing evolving priorities in telecom operations support. Briscoe has spent over 17 years working in telecoms operations support, with experience in consulting and software creation spanning fault management, service fulfilment and planning.
Briscoe has worked on a number of large deployments around the world and has built specialisation within new network technologies and working with network partners.

Alberto Calcagno
Fastweb
Alberto Calcagno, COO of Fastweb, is responsible for the coordination of the company's business units. He joined Fastweb during the start-up period as head of strategic planning, and subsequently was appointed chief financial officer with responsibility for administration, finance and control.
After graduating in political economics at Milan's Bocconi University and taking a doctorate at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Calcagno worked for international investment banks Salomon Brothers and Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, specialising in mergers and acquisitions in the telecommunications industry.

Brian Casazza
Zed
In the past 10 years, Brian Casazza, CEO of Zed in the US and Australia, co-founded what is now America's largest and most profitable mobile entertainment company. He is also a board member of publicly listed MonsterMob, and regional director of the world's largest mobile entertainment player.
"He grew the US business to $120 million in revenue with nearly 20% market share, making it the number one independent distributor of real music ringtones in the country," said an admirer. He secured exclusives with major entertainment companies like LionsGate, the NBA, Warner Music, MTV Networks, and Universal Pictures.
"But perhaps the best thing I can say about Brian is that he cares about the people he manages and the quality of the product he provides to his customers."

Christina Domecq
SpinVox
At just 32 years of age, Christina Domecq is building her third successful business, one that is not only transforming voice messaging globally, but is also tapping into a marketplace worth an estimated $10 billion.
Her moment of inspiration in 2003, when she received 14 voicemails in one morning and asked: "Why can't I get my voicemails as text?" led her to co-found SpinVox with Daniel Doulton.
She and the team have now raised in excess of $200 million to create and launch a new category of messaging called voice-to-content.
SpinVox has launched with 16 global carriers including Vodafone Spain, Vodacom South Africa, Alltel, Rogers, Cincinnati Bell, Sasktel, Telstra, Telus and Movistar Chile. It has signed a deal to launch with Optus in Australia in 2009. SpinVox is available via Skype.
SpinVox gives people the freedom to use their voice to send texts or emails to any mobile phone, PDA or Blackberry, or even update their blogs and social networks, just by using their voice.

Helmut Duhs
Velcom
Helmut Duhs, now CEO and CFO of Velcom, began his career as consultant in 1994 and in 1996 he started as controller and project manager at Mobilkom Austria.
He became CEO of Mobilkom Austria group services, driving synergies and integrating new members into the group.
Following the closing the transaction in November 2007, Duhs became CEO/CFO of Velcom in Belarus, leading the successful expansion of the parent Telekom Austria Group into Belarus.
He planned the integration of the largest Belarusian enterprise into a publicly listed Western company and took over the responsibility for the implementation of the plan, overcoming cultural, linguistic, economic and legal framework challenges to deliver great results for the first year.
After one year under his leadership, Velcom has won market leadership, with revenues, Ebitda and net profit increasing by 40% year-on-year.
"This was achieved through the repositioning of the group in line with the priorities of the market and the creation of a great team of local experts and managers from Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Austria operations," said a colleague.

Olivia Garfield
BT
Olivia Garfield is BT's group director for strategy and portfolio, responsible for setting the group's strategic and product direction across its business.
Specifically, Garfield is the pan-BT instigator and owner of BT's £1.5 billion fibre investment to roll out fibre-based, super-fast broadband to as many as 10 million homes in the UK by December 2012.
Garfield has been instrumental is driving BT's investment in super-fast broadband, covering strategy, regulation, technology, product portfolio, customer experience, commercial and regional engagement.
Garfield is also the conduit for BT's operating committee and board on strategic matters, represents BT externally in a variety of manners including industry engagement and customer executive leadership, and is the chair of the key pan-BT governance bodies for strategy, investment and portfolio decision making.

Martin Geddes
BT
Martin Geddes, 38, is head of strategy at BT Design. He is acknowledged as one of the leading thinkers and analysts on the future of the communications industry. He has a specialist interest in the future of voice and personal communications, as well as the application of two-sided market structures to the telecoms industry.
Until the end of 2008 he was chief analyst at STL Partners, where he co-founded the Telco 2.0 Initiative. This is designed to catalyse business model innovation and collaboration across the telecoms-media-technology ecosystem.
Earlier he was a technology specialist and product strategy manager at Sprint in the US, and is named on eight granted US patents. His early career was as an IT consultant, specialising in high availability and scalability database design at Oracle, as well as financial transaction processing systems at BancTec.

Felix Geyr
Be
Felix Geyr was an entrepreneur with his own startup which he sold before he joined O2 UK as a head of strategy reporting to a board member. He led several groundbreaking strategy projects for O2 leading to a systematic expansion of O2's business footprint and finally to the acquisition of Be*, a successful DSL player. Geyr, aged 37, is now the CEO of Be.

Walter Goldenits
Telekom Austria
Walter Goldenits, CTO of Telekom Austria, joined its mobile business, Mobilkom Austria, in 1998 and became head of the IT department in 2003.
From 2007 to 2008 he took over the position of CTO at Mobilkom's si.mobil, the second largest mobile communications operator in Slovenia.
Goldenits later took over the network planning and ICT departments at Telekom Austria and was appointed CTO in January 2009.
He had main responsibility for the IT strategic orientation of the mobile communications group and achieved cost cuts of 30% at Mobilkom Austria.
Now he is in charge of design and implementation of Telekom Austria's transition to an all-IP network, and successfully implemented the reorganisation within only four months. The new programme was initiated in mid-2008.

Michael Hecker
MTS
Michael Hecker is VP for strategy and corporate development at MTS and is the force behind the strategic direction of MTS and the organisational transformation of the company into country-focused operational business units and a corporate centre with control over strategic and investment decisions and brand development.
Hecker has many years of experience in European telecommunications industry, having worked both as a lawyer and a consultant in leading firms, including AT Kearny in 2000-2006.
In May 2006, he joined MTS to apply the leading international business practices and to lead the company to become one of the leading telecommunications companies in the world.

Dalia Hussein
Telus
Dalia Hussein was a key individual in Telus's BSS transformation programme. "With the support of her team she oversaw numerous key transformational elements such as the customer ODS, customer diary, billing ODS to name a few," says a colleague.
She is a tireless advocate of master data and one of the few individuals who can translate complex data architectural concepts into designs and development plans.
"Most recently she has moved to customer and subscriber profile and works hard to ensure incremental benefits rather than the dreaded big bang approach."
Hussein and her team are active contributors to the TM Forum's work, contributing not just to Telus but to the industry as a whole. "Dalia is an excellent resource that we have high hopes for as she matures within Telus and the industry."

Ryan Jarvis
Edifice
Ryan Jarvis has founded and been CEO at two very successful telecoms start-ups that have had a significant effect on telecoms innovation.
Most recently, Macropolitan became the UK's largest urban sites owner for mobile and WiMax operators with 18,000 buildings under exclusive agreement. Macropolitan was a major financial success as it was acquired by Arqiva after only 18 months.
His previous start-up, Megabeam, was an early entrant into wifi hotspots, pioneering the pan-European model, It was the first wholesale hotspot operator. Megabeam was acquired by Swisscom after three years.
He has been very influential in developing the ecosystem for convergence, founding and chairing an alliance of operators, the Fixed Mobile Convergence Alliance, as well as launching BT into the convergence market.
Earlier in his career he was head of sales, strategy and legal at Ericsson for its enterprise, fixed networks and satellite operator businesses.

Mustansir Jhaveri
Verizon
Since January 2008, Mustansir Jhaveri has led the Verizon Network Systems IT organisation developing and maintaining applications which manage operations for the Verizon Telecom and Business wireline networks.
His responsibilities include the Verizon network engineering, construction and provisioning systems. He manages a world class software development team of 1,400 employees, which develop industry leading OSS solutions.
He was earlier executive director of the engineering and supply chain systems where he helped conceive and build new systems for the massive and rapid fibre to the premises network build.
Since joining Verizon in 1998, Jhaveri served in several positions as principal architect and group manager where he helped commercially implement IT solutions with Verizon's International affiliate holdings.

Eli Katz
XConnect
Eli Katz is the founder and CEO of XConnect, the world's first and largest provider of federation-based peering and interconnection services dedicated to connecting telecom operators and enabling rich multi-media end-to-end IP communications.
Katz co-founded and is chairman of the UK's Internet Telephony Service Providers' Association.
Before founding XConnect he was managing director of Telco Global from its inception in 1996 to 2003 and was a key player in the IPO of its US parent company.
He is the author of several VoIP directory and security patents, and is a computer science graduate from Imperial College London.

Gregory Khaldey
Gigafone
As CEO of Gigafone in Russia, Gregory Khaldey has introduced the most innovative business model for mobile advertising and has rolled out the service in Russia and about to start in Germany and Spain, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia.
He said at Mobile World Congress in early 2009: "Today's fragmented mobile advertising ecosystem creates a catch-22 for advertisers and agencies. Measurement and planning on mobile are difficult and this dramatically reduces the propensity for brands to invest in mobile advertising in a turbulent economic environment."
In 1998 Khaldey co-founded the Science Research Institute of Computer Psycho-Technologies, which developed a next-generation polygraph test and Clear Sky, an anti-terrorist product successfully launched at several airports.
He then invested in advertising and media market trading, and founded Gigafone in 2003.
He studied at Oxford University and the GV Plexanova Economic Academy.

Dan Klein
Detica
Dan Klein is responsible for Detica's telecoms and media business unit sales to non-UK businesses and to Virgin Media.
Earlier in his career he was at PA Consulting, where he led a team of seven working in the early days of BT's 21CN programme — its all-IP transformation project. Other PA clients included Siemens, for which he project managed the rescue of the BMW 5 series entertainment, telematics and navigation platform and was a member of the European post-merger integration team combining Siemens Automotive and Mannesmann VDO.
Before joining PA Klein developed safety-critical software in the aerospace and automotive divisions of TRW.
Now he is the media accounts director at Detica.

Markus Lause
Vodafone
Markus Lause is head of product marketing in the enterprise business unit at Vodafone D2, the group's German operation.
Lause started his career within the mobile industry as an employee of Mannesmann Mobilfunk which then became Vodafone Germany. He spent some time at Vodafone Sweden in Karlskrona and Stockholm before he came back to Düsseldorf to lead the newly established product market function for the enterprise business unit.
In this function he developed a leading product roadmap in the FMC and ICT market, contributing to Vodafone's success in the business segment after the integration of Arcor.

François Locoh-Donou
Ciena
Francois Locoh-Donou "is a great example of someone who has achieved enormous success within an organisation," said a colleague, "having started his career at Ciena as a systems engineer and working up to his current senior role as general manager for Ciena's largest area of operations outside of the US".
Now general manager for the EMEA, he has met with considerable success having grown the business by 51% year-on-year since 2004.
When Locoh-Donou took over the region, it was a largely concentrated in only two countries in western Europe. During the last five years, he has grown revenue sevenfold, improved operations and profitability, and expanded into 13 other countries.
He has an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, a mastère in optical telecommunications from the École Télécom ParisTech (ENST), and a diplome d'ingenieur in physics engineering from the École Nationale Superieure de Physique in Marseille.

Shane Logan
Telus
Shane joined Telus five years ago and quickly rose to director of service strategy and development. A colleague says: "He came with a unique understanding many years ago about decoupling applications and services from the underlying network."
Logan developed three years ago one of the first service delivery frameworks in the world. "He succeeded in the developing and productising a world-leading SDF that exceeded expectations and set Telus up to also decouple traditional telephony applications from the network core."
His latest work is on content delivery framework, and is working to develop a standard between operators and developers for application sharing.

Horace Luke
HTC
At 39 years old, Horace Luke, chief innovation officer at HTC, is one of the mobile industry design pioneers, driving HTC to turn powerful, traditionally business-centric smartphones into objects of consumer desire, combining sophisticated styling with simple, intuitive user interfaces.
These handsets allow consumers to fuse their personal and professional mobile worlds together without worrying about the technology which underpins them.
Luke has turned his design expertise acquired through his work with Nike and the original Xbox design team to drive the development of HTC's mobile devices which now are held as the benchmark for both Windows Mobile and Android devices.

Glenice Maclellan
Telstra
Glenice Maclellan has responsibility for the category marketing and marketing operations functions in Telstra's largest operating division, consumer marketing and channels.
As executive director at Telstra Consumer she leads product design, packaging and ranging, operational planning and performance and channel delivery for individual consumer product categories and bundles including mobile telephony, subscription television, fixed-line telephony, broadband internet, data and value added services. These categories have delivered some of the highest growth rates of any large telco globally.
Before joining Telstra, Maclellan was VP at Cingular Wireless. She has also been CMO at Eurotel in the Czech Republic.

Erwan Ménard
Hewlett-Packard
As the VP and general manager for the Communications and Media Solutions business at HP, Erwan Ménard is leading a new business unit that will be a true industry solutions powerhouse at the world's largest IT company.
CMS combines consulting and integration services with specialised industry software targeted exclusively at the telecommunications and media industries.
With his globally diverse background from years with Alcatel-Lucent, Erwan is no stranger to building new businesses and new teams, as he did with Alcatel's mobile communications business in North America.

Tony Mestres
Microsoft
If you want to do a deal in mobile with the world's largest software company, you had better get to know Tony Mestres, general manager of Microsoft's mobile communications business, says an enthusiastic colleague.
Mestres manages the worldwide partner strategy and business development teams for Microsoft's mobile business. His responsibilities include developing long-term strategic relationships with industry partners, creating and utilising innovative customer-centric sales and marketing models, and identifying trends in the marketplace around devices, software and services for use by the development teams.
From the inception of Windows Mobile, Mestres has helped to lead growth to 160 mobile operators and more than 50 partners worldwide, with more than 50 million devices shipped.
He began his career at BellSouth Mobile Enterprises, and was then responsible for sales and marketing for The Walter Group, a telecoms venture capital and consultancy firm.

Rene Meza
Zain
Paraguayan Rene Meza has spent over a decade working in the telecom sector in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In June 2008, he was appointed managing director of Zain in Kenya — then Celtel Kenya — a move that made him, at 32, one of the youngest heads of a mobile operator in the history of the industry.
A keen music lover and guitarist, he graduated in marketing and business administration from Paraguay's American University.
He is committed to cementing Zain's reputation among Kenya's 38 million-strong population and building on the pioneering example set by Celtel. He has announced that Zain would be investing $350 million over the next two years to expand and improve the network.

Alastair Mills
SpiriTel
In 2005 Alastair Mills became one of the youngest CEOs of a London Stock Exchange listed company. SpiriTel was a failing business when Mills took over control: the share price had crashed, shareholders were angry and prospects for a recovery appeared remote. "He has turned around an insolvent company with no strategy for growth," says a colleague.
Since then Mills has put together a converged communications offering including hosted VoIP and mobile services. The company has grown from 17 staff and 6 customers to 115 staff and 2200 customers.

Alex Moukas
Velti
Alex Moukas is the 37-year old CEO and founder of Velti, the world's largest mobile marketing and advertising technology provider.
The company has grown 100% year on year since its inception in 2000; achieving 164% revenue growth in 2008 over 2007's figures — from €19.8 million to €52.4 million.
Mobile marketing and advertising is poised to grow massively over the next few years and Moukas has positioned Velti strongly to lead the market from the front.
Velti is now serving over 70 of the world's biggest operators, giving the company connectivity to around two billion consumers in 35 countries. The company has also struck out with some industry firsts in terms of strategic mobile marketing joint ventures to expand reach and expertise, firstly with the advertising giant Interpublic and secondly with the owner of the Hindustan Times in India.
Previously Moukas co-founded and was chief scientist of strategic sourcing software provider FCI. He has degrees from MIT, Sloan School, the University of Edinburgh and the American College of Greece.

Farooq Muzaffar
Verizon
Berfore Verizon, Farooq Muzaffar was an investment banker in the technology, media and the telecom group at Goldman Sachs. He is now VP of IT product development at Verizon Business, where is responsible for developing products for the business market.
His experience also includes developing software systems for GTE and consulting with the advanced technology group at what is now Accenture. A mechanical engineering from the University of California Berkeley he also has an MBA from MIT Sloan.
Earlier at Verizon, he was executive director in the Verizon architecture and e-services group where he was focused on delivering next generation communications solutions to enterprise customers.

Jocelyn Philbrook
HiveFive
Jocelyn Philbrook was VP of corporate marketing at Sonus Networks. "A true leader," said a colleague. "Her vision, passion and marketing savvy led to the first ever brand launch at Sonus Networks in 2008. She has led the charge to change the face of Sonus."
Philbrook has forged a highly effective partnership between Sonus's marketing and engineering teams. She previously created and directed its integrated worldwide communications organisation. Before joining Sonus, Philbrook led investor relations for Cabletron Systems.
Having left Sonus, she moved on to HiveFive but is believed to be planning a new venture.

Kathy-Ann Quashie
Carphone Warehouse Europe
Kathy-Ann Quashie is director of customer operations at Carphone Warehouse Europe, where "she shows excellent understanding" and has been "visionary in integrating AOL Europe", says the person who nominated her. And now she will have Tiscali to add. Quashie has just moved sideways from group revenue assurance with ease.
She has a masters degree with a black belt in Six Sigma, combined with over eight years proven revenue assurance experience in the telecommunications industry. She has worked with operators such as BT and T-Mobile before Carphone Warehouse, so has skills including wholesaler, network and now service provider.
Quashie is accountable for delivering programmes to support business change initiatives with keen insight into revenue controls and gross margin realisation.

Tom Regent
AT&T
Since joining AT&T in 1999 from IBM Global Services, Tom Regent has rocketed up the ranks at the company, being appointed head of the EMEA region in 2007 — at the age of 37.
He is driving AT&T's business in what is its most important market outside of the US, spearheading landmark deals such as the Shell networking outsourcing deal in 2008.
Regent has also held a number of staff positions in the US at the company's headquarters from 2002 to 2004. Following the ending of AT&T's Concert joint venture with BT several years ago he played a major role in re-establishing AT&T's presence around the world.
He is a Belgian national and graduate of the Universities of Louvain and Louvain-la-Neuve with a bachelor of applied economics and an MBA with a major in international management.

Oliver Schmerold
Alcatel-Lucent
Oliver Schmerold is VP for vertical market services at Alcatel-Lucent, responsible worldwide for the services business for Alcatel-Lucent in the non-carrier segment.
Schmerold was head of services in the carrier market for CEE.
He initiated and implemented several groundbreaking projects in the network operation outsourcing for leading operators such as BT, E-Plus and Orange. Thus he is mainly responsible for Alcatel-Lucent's successful business footprint in this new market segment.
"Based on his business, strategic as well as implementation strengths he became vice-president worldwide for the non-carrier market," said an admirer.

Mikhail Shamolin
MTS
Mikhail Shamolin, president and CEO of MTS, is leading the largest mobile operator in Russia and the CIS and the second largest mobile operator in Europe by proportionate subscriber count.
Shamolin joined MTS in July 2005 as VP for sales and customer service and became the head of MTS Russia in August 2006. During his leadership of MTS Russia, revenues grew 67% and operating efficiency improved considerably as he presided over sustained growth in voice usage and adoption of value-added services, both of which led to an over 50% rise in average revenue per user. In May 2008, he was appointed president and CEO of the group.
Before joining MTS, Shamolin worked at McKinsey and then at Interpipe as managing director of the ferroalloys division. He graduated from the Russian Academy of Government Service and studied at Wharton Business School.

David Sharma
Telus
In his role as senior vice-president of Telus Partner Solutions, David Sharma leads a North American team of more than 1,300 whose goal is to provide innovative solutions to service providers.
His mandate is to position Telus as Canada's IP leader and trusted partner of choice in the global wholesale telecommunications market.
Since joining Telus in 1999, Sharma has held a number of key management positions, including VP of global sales for Telus Partner Solutions and VP of sales and operations for Telus Integrated Communications.
He has held senior positions in engineering and operations at Bell Canada and led the development of the initial suite of Bell broadband services.

Dor Skuler
Alcatel-Lucent
Dor Skuler is general manager of mobile security in Alcatel-Lucent's enterprise business group. "One of the most non-traditional, innovative leaders I've seen in a long time," said one colleague. He incubated and commercialised the OmniAccess 3500 Nonstop Laptop Guardian.
His innovative approach to leadership didn't stop with the launch of the product. He evangelized the solution globally, changing the security discussion and creating a new market.
He is a former officer in the Intelligence Corps of the Israel Defence Force.

Alexander Sperl
Vip Mobile
Alexander Sperl is CEO of Vip Mobile Serbia, a greenfield start-up operator in the Mobilkom Austria group.
The operation started within only six months of the licence award. Within just 20 months the operator reached one million customers and more than 10% market share.
Sperl positioned Vip as the operator that is moving the entire market — introducing, despite being the youngest operator, the latest and most innovative services to the market.
Forcing the large domestic incumbent and the large multinational number two operator to react and improve their services.
"He has excellent knowhow of the industry and is an all-round manager with knowhow in market, commercial, financial and technology matters," said a colleague. He is well recognised for his knowledge and pragmatic, team-oriented and especially result-oriented approach.

Dan Warren
GSM Association
Dan Warren is director of technology at the GSM Association, "but is not what I would describe as a classic techie geek", said a colleague. "He can address complex technical issues across the full breadth of the communications industry, but he can also relay these concepts to the business community in a way that they can digest and easily comprehend."
This rare skill makes him highly effective at influencing business strategy and service concepts, as well as retaining authority in setting technical direction. "His current work within the GSM Association on roaming and interconnect will shape the way that fixed and mobile operators' businesses and networks interact for years to come, and is based on a clear vision of how the communications industry needs to evolve to remain profitable as underlying technology changes."
He is in high demand as a speaker and regularly addresses the media on a broad range of topics.

Mohammed Zainalabedin
Zain
Mohammed Zainalabedin has been with Zain Bahrain since day one of operations and is now general manager.
"He is part and parcel of its success story in attaining the market leadership against the incumbent in a short time of five years", said a colleague. "He is known for his dynamism and his analytical approach to making the telecoms giant one of the technology leaders in the region."
The Bahrain operation pilots new mobile technologies on behalf of the group, including nationwide 3G, 3.5G and WiMax services.
Zain is market leader in Bahrain, with a 51% share and 696,000 active customers. At the start-up he was manager of enterprise applications in the IT department. GTB